Riley's Rants

In order to understand how my mom is dog’s best friend you need to understand a little about her personality. My mom is incredibly independent and stubborn and hates to ask for help. Hates it! She would rather move a 100 pound book case or fix something herself than ask for help... except when it comes to saving dogs' lives. Mom is shameless when asking for help with saving dogs. She will ask your brother’s roommate’s cousin for help if she needed it. But it’s because she opens herself up, becomes vulnerable and asks for help that she is able to do so much.

For the past 3 years mom and has been working at the local shelter for 2-3 days a week (in addition to her full time job). She awakened a sleeping giant when she started working there and is very passionate about shelter dogs and adopting. So much so that’s it’s probably a bit annoying to some. ;)

Mom has pretty much done it all; worked/volunteered at the shelter, fostered, transported, pulled dogs from other shelters, adopted, and advocated. Some of her bigger accomplishments include getting dogs pulled, transported, and adopted from several states away. But she couldn’t do it by herself. Dogster has been a huge part of mom’s rescue work. She has met countless friends and like minded individuals who have played very important roles in almost all of her rescues. The first was Gypsy, am emaciated husky mix who she fostered and got accepted to a husky rescue in IL thanks to the help of fellow Dogsters, who also helped transport Gypsy to the rescue. The latest rescue involved getting a 3 legged pit bull puppy from Nebraska to Ohio- Dogsters were responsible for getting the pup from Nebraska to the Iowa/Illinois state line, that entire transport and rescue could not have happened without the help of Dogsters!

A sad lesson mom has had to learn is to pick her battles... but when mom decides to fight, she has yet to loose. She has saved several German Shepherds, 2 huskies, and 1 pit bull from her own shelter, not only getting these dogs into rescue in different states but also opening up kennel space for other dogs. She has also pulled 3 dogs from shelters in other states and gotten them into foster/forever homes. When mom puts her mind to something you better not stand in her way, but you can always help her along the way.

Mom is tireless when it comes to improving the lives of “her” shelter dogs and getting them into great homes. She says it is her passion and her definition of passion is never being satisfied with status quo and always striving for improvement. She researches enrichment ideas for the shelter, recruits and trains volunteers, developed and teaches a class for shelter dog walkers, and is starting a behavioral assessment program for her shelter so that animals are better matched to potential adopters. In fact, it’s amazing she has time to spend with us!

So that’s it, my mom rocks, but so does Dogster and its members. Mom is truly humbled and blessed by the fine folks she has met and friends she has made. She doesn’t know what she would do without some of these folks in her life, and she certainly knows that a few lives have been saved because of those folks!